Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden review — A satisfying blend of exploration and XCOM-style combat

Postal service-apocalyptic stories seem to exist a dime-a-dozen these days. For that reason, it's incredibly of import that whatsoever new tale prepare around the aftermath of the end-of-the-world brings something interesting and unique to the table in order to set it apart from the norm. When I saw that Mutant Year Zero: Route to Eden, a game centered completely around XCOM-fashion plow-based combat, was having a go at a post-apocalyptic, I was worried. After all, games of this kind typically don't take a story worth caring about.

Thankfully, I was pleasantly surprised past Mutant Yr Zero's writing, which is propped upwards quite a bit by the game'southward exploration mechanics. Typically, real-time exploration and plow-based combat are never used in tandem, but that has now changed. And while Mutant Yr Zilch isn't perfect, information technology's even so a compelling feel that kept me playing for hours on cease.

Fight your way to salvation

Mutant Twelvemonth Aught: Road to Eden

A fresh take on an old style

Mutant Twelvemonth Cipher is a compelling and enjoyable alloy of exploration and tactical gainsay that volition go along you playing day afterward 24-hour interval.

Well-nigh this review

This review was conducted on a Windows 10 PC equipped with an Intel i7-8700K processor, an NVIDIA GeForce 1050Ti graphics bill of fare, and 16GB of RAM, using a review copy of the game provided to Windows Central.

Story and setting

Similar almost every other post-apocalyptic game, Mutant Year Zero is fix on the remains of an Earth obliterated past nuclear weapons. Although nature has reclaimed the planet, flesh seemingly went extinct, and at present only two groups occupy the globe: strange humanoid animals called mutants, and savagely powerful predators called ghouls. Eden, a fabulous location of peace and prosperity, is something that the mutants strive to find; the ghouls wish to hunt the mutants to their last.

You lot start Mutant Year Zero controlling 2 mutants: Dux and Bormin. The former is a duck while the latter is a boar, and both are fighting to survive and maybe even attain the fabulous promise country of Eden 1 24-hour interval. This is essentially the story, and while the plot itself isn't artistic, the concept definitely is. A globe in which several normal animals accept get homo-levels of intelligence due to mutations is interesting and unique, which solves the painfully commonplace result of post-apocalyptic worlds feeling too like to one another.

Mutant Year Zero strongly goes against what you lot've come to look about mail service-apocalyptic settings.

Each of the characters in the story are well-written, though I practice wish that they were fleshed out more overall. There's certainly a degree of natural language-in-cheek humor present in the narrative considering yous're playing as weird animal people, but the characters had solid plenty foundations that I would have liked to run across the writing take itself seriously more. The comedic elements can come beyond as quite jarring, given the serious apocalyptic tones elsewhere. Despite this, though, they were yet pretty enjoyable, with my favorite in particular existence the sassy wise-quacking duck, Dux.

Gameplay systems

Mostly, Mutant Twelvemonth Zero'southward gameplay is split up upwards into 2 styles: real time exploration, and tactical plow based combat. The former encourages yous to inspect every nook and cranny of the world, finding scrap, equipment, and $.25 of environmental storytelling, while the latter is similar to XCOM but with some unique elements.

Exploring is somewhat necessary for finding gear, but if you prefer to get correct into the activeness, y'all can, for the most part. At that place are tons of items and details hidden in the world, though, so I highly recommend trying to see everything that it has to offer. As y'all go through dissimilar locations, your characters will comment on things they see, which helps contextualize certain things and gives insight on the world you're playing in.

The real meat of the game, though, lies with the combat organization. Like with XCOM, your "units" (the characters) and enemies tin take cover, utilize high ground, and use special abilities during combat turns. I unique thing about the game, though, is real time stealth. As your political party walks around, you have the ability to control when the first shot is fired considering y'all can sneak past enemies and have up advantageous positions outside of their sightlines. This is particularly useful for long range characters like Dux who prefer to snipe from afar, though everyone benefits getting the drib on their opponents.

Additionally, the majority of the game environment is destructible, which makes each encounter experience even more than strategic. Not all cover is equally durable, so information technology's important to have note of what your characters are hiding behind every bit well as the cover of your enemies. A fallen tree body tin take a lot more punishment then a flimsy wooden board, for example. Likewise, entire walls tin be shot out, which opens up completely new types of flanking angles. Bormin's charge ability is great for doing this, and I'd be lying if I said that I don't dear having him blast a wall down before diggings a ghoul in the face with a shotgun.

It would have been appreciated if the game had new aiming mechanics that broke away from the stale percent gamble-to-hit norm, but this downside is completely kickoff by the dynamic and engaging systems that Mutant Year Zero brings to the table.

Presentation and performance

Visually, Mutant Year Nothing is a very appealing game. A post-apocalyptic globe that teems with natural life needs to somehow exist both vibrant and dreary at the same time, and the game's aesthetic manages to capture this expect excellently. While the greens, yellows, and reds of Globe reborn are gorgeous, the shadows and atmosphere overall have a very dark and unsettling aureola about them that creates a sense of unease.

The aesthetic of the game manages to somehow feel both lively and vibrant, as well as dark and unsettling.

In terms of performance, the game ran flawlessly on my arrangement, with no frame drops or screen hitching at all. That kind of perfect operation is very very rare in this day and historic period, and I commend the developers of Mutant Yr Nix for managing to achieve it. In our testing on Xbox nevertheless, we found that the frame rate could be a little erratic at times, with mild stutter in some areas. The unlocked frame rate can, on occasion, hit the 60 FPS marking on Xbox One X, simply it might have been smarter to lock it down to 30 to grant a sense of smoothness, or add separate graphics modes.

Should you buy Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden?

If yous enjoy XCOM-style turn based gainsay, post-apocalyptic worlds, and enjoyable characters, then Mutant Year Zero is the perfect game for yous.

Pros:

Well-written story and characters.
Intriguing world to explore.
First-class gameplay systems.
Cute visuals.

Cons:

Comedic elements come off as jarring sometimes.
Percentage-based hitting mechanics feel a petty stale.

The inelegant blend of serious themes and wacky comedy, and the use of what I feel are dated strategy game aiming mechanics preclude Mutant Yr Zero from being truly perfect, but it'southward however an incredible experience that yous can't miss.

Fight your way to salvation

Mutant Yr Nix: Road to Eden

A fresh take on an former style

Mutant Year Naught is a compelling and enjoyable blend of exploration and tactical combat that will proceed y'all playing twenty-four hour period after day.

Mutant Year Zero: Route to Eden is available at present for $35 on PC, Xbox I, and PlayStation 4.

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